|
The
"We Remember" Booklet 2006
 "WE
REMEMBER" 5
Frederick William and Edwin Lawrence Crofts
 
They were two
brothers from a family of ten. During World War I they both
enlisted into the 6th battalion of the Buffs. Both
were killed in action; Frederick on 9th April 1917,
and Edwin, (pictured left) who had gone back to the Front after
recovering from wounds, on 27th August 1918.
Their brother Harold.
the eldest of the three, born in 1881, also served in the Buffs.
He was captured in France and marched to Westphalia, where he
worked in the mines as a Prisoner of War. For his photograph by
the Red Cross a German officer insisted he should be properly
dressed, and so he borrowed a hat from another prisoner in place
of his own lost cap.
Edward
Scarlett
One of the sons of
Maria and coachbuilder Edward Scarlett he was an Engine Room
Artificer. Said to be well known to a large circle of friends,
he went to St Mary’s school and was apprenticed at the Dour Iron
Foundry before joining the Navy. His submarine E24 was the first
Naval minelayer. Two months after her completion in January
1916, when Edward was 33, she was lost on a mission to lay mines
as Heligoland Bight. In 1973 the hull was accidentally salvaged
and examination suggested the submarine herself had struck a
mine. In July 1974 the remains of 25 unidentified sailors were
recovered. They are buried in Hamburg.
Guy
John Middleton
He was born in Deal,
the son of the late James Middleton and Mrs Fanny Davidson, who
had remarried. In Edinburgh he enlisted for the Great War into
the Royal Field Artillery. He was repairing communications
under heavy shellfire when he was injured. He died from his
wounds on 21 July 1916 when he was 25. His commanding officer
wrote of him as a “loyal, devoted, and fearless man”. He was
recommended for an award for bravery two days before his death,
and six days afterwards notification was received that he had
been granted the Military Medal.
| 